South Korean Soldiers under Attack by Chinese Hackers

The access to systems of South Korean soldiers by the Chinese hackers has led to the declaration of emergency alert by the security authorities of South Korean military forces.

The attack has already threatened few soldiers by hacking their personal information. Through military of South Korea uses its own closed network to work, but sometimes, it uses the Internet to access certain information. The security authorities are now investigating on whether few of the military officers and soldiers are saving military secrets in the computers which are insecure.

The security authorities of South Korea said January 1, 2008 that the spammers and hackers who are accessing the personal computers of South Korean soldiers have been working from China. The hackers are accessing their computers by sending mails laden with viruses to the personal mail accounts of soldiers and then accessing all the information flashed on their computers.

An officer of Defense security stated that as hackers from China have many a times accessed their soldiers' systems, they've issued a warning to all military units countrywide about the activities of Chinese hackers, reported English Chosun on January 2, 2008.

The authorities explained that the Chinese hackers send the e-mails titled with some important information but actually when accessed, spoils everything. The authorities said this time the hackers sent e-mails to soldiers with title "the situation on North Korea's arms power". The Chinese hackers send hacking e-mails to the soldiers by downloading their e-mail addresses from various listed portals or websites of military units and various veteran associations.

Though the South Korean security has gauged the hackers as Chinese citizens, but the fact whether they're ordinary citizens or are officials of Chinese army is still unknown.

However, this is not the first instance of hacking from China. In 2000, China launched a military unit - NET Force, whose task was to conduct mock exercises of launching cyber attacks as well as sending harassing information. In 2004, a Chinese hacked the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses that was funded by the state of Korea.

The frequent cyber attacks from China have become severe, as per the Korean authorities.